One boy and his dog

Strange thing happened when we were in Warrenpoint this week. Myself and Reilly were playing on the beach while Shane and Ellis played football in the park across the way.

Reilly will happily stay on the beach as long as he’s allowed to or until he’s bordering on actually freezing. A discarded yazoo milkshake bottle was his play thing for the beach and he sat for ages filling it with sand and pouring it over his toes.

He made a break for the water to fill up his bottle, me like an upside down turtle trying to get up and leg it after him with my dodgy plated ankle was a no hoper and out of nowhere appeared this dog. It wouldn’t let Reilly near the water, Reilly would have gone straight in, no fear. The dog kept standing in front of him and then rounding him like a sheep it was amazing to watch. Whether the dog was a service dog or not I really don’t know, it had a collar but I never saw it’s owner the whole time I was there. He/she hung about with us for about an hour.

I’ve toyed with the idea of an autism service dog for a long time and this settles the question for me. The experience also prompted Reilly to try and say dog!

Anyone with information regarding trained service dogs please let me know. I think they may be very expensive but when it comes to safety and companionship we’ll have to find it from somewhere.